Law

A woman who repeatedly texted her boyfriend, while she knew he was driving, and who ultimately crossed traffic and crashed into motorcyclists, cannot be added to a civil lawsuit according to a Superior Court judge in Morristown, New Jersey.

The standing committee on infrastructure and communications in the Australian House of Representatives will be launching an investigation into why digital goods (such as iTunes music and iBooks) are priced so much more highly in Australia than elsewhere in the world. Traditionally, shipping costs drove prices up for physical goods, but for electronic files you're downloading, there's really no good reason for such a price disparity.

The Fair Labor Association has just wrapped up its independent audit commissioned by Apple of the working conditions at Foxconn. After interviewing over 35,000 workers from three different factories, the FLA said their "nearly month-long investigation revealed serious and pressing noncompliances with FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct, as well as Chinese labor law."

Sweden-based Micro Systemation recently demonstrated on video just how easily their desktop software for military and law enforcement can crack into an iPhone. With a few quick reboots, XRY can not only dig out the phone's unlock code, but can also personal data, GPS locations, messages, and a log of keystrokes.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is asking for your help to tell the U.S. Copyright Office that jailbreaking does not violate the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), and its exemption should be continued and expanded.

The New York Times (via TUAW) is reporting that the iPhone is literally causing mistrials now. Howsat?

It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.